Richmond Street decision reaffirms El Cerrito’s commitment to low-carbon transportation

An overflow crowd attended the El Cerrito City Council meeting on July 15, when the council reviewed design plans for the Richmond Street Complete Streets Improvement Project. Photo: Livable El Cerrito

By Bill Wood, with Janet Byron

On July 15, the El Cerrito City Council reaffirmed our city’s commitment to fighting climate change and improving access to equitable and low-carbon transportation. The council directed the city engineer Yvetteh Ortiz to continue progress on converting less than half the parking spots on Richmond Street in favor of traffic calming measures, including bike lanes between Hill Street and Moeser Lane.

“The reality is we need a safe network for people to bike and walk and take transit because we are in a climate crisis,” Councilmember Rebecca Saltzman said. “We know the primary way we can combat that is by reducing the number of people who are taking vehicle trips when they could be replaced by biking and walking and transit.”

Ortiz and Jarrett Mullen, El Cerrito’s sustainable transportation program manager, began the city council’s study session with an excellent presentation detailing 25 years of policy that have laid the foundation for the Richmond Street Complete Streets Improvement Project, including the city’s Active Transportation Plan, Complete Streets policy, and Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. Many of their presentation’s points were reemphasized by council members in their comments. 

The opponents of bike lanes north of Moeser made repeated claims that the street improvements would make it harder for police and fire vehicles to navigate Richmond Street. Councilmember Saltzman invited Fire Chief Eric Saylors and Police Chief Paul Keith to the lectern to address this directly:

“The police department was consulted during the design process for this portion of the roadway, and our analysis indicates that we should not have any response challenges due to changes in the roadway.”
— Police Chief Paul Keith

“We were consulted as well during the design process and all of our concerns and recommendations were met through the design process to make sure that we don’t have any delayed response times.”
— Fire Chief Eric Saylors

Councilmember William Ktsanes introduced a four-point motion that would have delayed the project and forced the city planners to redesign the project. None of the four other council members supported his motion, so it died for lack of a second. Later, Councilmember Ktsanes introduced another motion to lower the fee to appeal this project from about $1,100 to about $632, and allow residents to apply collectively.

Motoyama and Saltzman pointed out that the fee is set at $1,100 because that is how much it costs in staff time to address appeals, and that if they have to address appeals at multiple addresses it doesn’t make fiscal sense to allow residents to appeal together. Nonetheless, the council decided to keep the fee at $632 and not allow collective appeals.

Certainly the most vivid moments of the night came from El Cerrito Mayor Carolyn Wysinger. “Our job on the council is to look at the totality and whole of this community (like) the city’s strategic plan of 2016 and the climate goals,” Mayor Wysinger said in her remarks.

“We are in a situation where we woke up one morning two years ago and the whole city was orange. Climate change,”Wysinger said. “We can’t count on what our seasons are going to be. Climate change. Our governor has put a policy in place to try to reduce carbon emissions by reducing the amount of cars that are on the streets. Climate change.”

Wynsinger objected to opponents’ use of the language of social justice to protect their perceived entitlement to street parking:

“Parking on the street is a privilege. No one owns the street . . . You do not build policy saying it’s okay, it’s worked for 50 years. Things are changing. The culture of driving is changing … For those reasons I will be supporting this plan. I’m always going to root for the future.”

— El Cerrito Mayor Carolyn Wysinger

Supporters of safer streets on Richmond Street and throughout the city came out in force to support the project. THANK YOU! Dozens of El Cerritans—including many Richmond Street residents—plus supporters from Richmond Annex and Albany wrote e-mails to the council before the July 15 meeting and showed up in council chambers displaying our bright green “YES for SAFE, BEAUTIFUL, COMPLETE STREETS” stickers. Numerous supporters of the project spoke during public comment, letting the council know that they want to live in a community that prioritizes safer streets over parking.

Although opponents of the Richmond Street Complete Streets Improvement Project have the opportunity to appeal the design to the city manager and then city council, with a 4-1 majority of councilmembers expressing support for the design it’s a virtual certainty that any appeals would not succeed. If opponents of the project appeal, the council would likely vote to move the project forward in October. (If you sent an email, keep a copy just in case.)

The July 15 meeting was covered in the East Bay Times, Richmond Standard (funded by Chevron), and Livable El Cerrito, and a video of the meeting is posted on the City of El Cerrito website (Richmond Street study session begins at 51:30).